Stephen King: Beep Beep, Jealous Cow

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > Stephen King: Beep Beep, Jealous Cow

Mister Kingdom: Dec 14, 2005; And the tears that fall
On the city wall
Will fade away
With the rays of morning light

I pretty much stopped reading King after finishing the Dark Tower series. I picked up From a Buick 8 and Cell at my local library's annual book sale for a buck each.

I paid $1.98 too much.

Buick was just plain awful. Zero suspense. No payoff. Yawn, yawn, yawn. Maybe the movie won't suck.

Cell was essentially The Stand with killer zombies instead of the superflu. It was okay until the final third when I realized nothing was going to happen. Maybe the movie won't suck.

# ¿ May 4, 2009 18:40

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# ¿ May 3, 2024 03:36

Mister Kingdom: Dec 14, 2005; And the tears that fall
On the city wall
Will fade away
With the rays of morning light

Ballsworthy posted:

I don't care about Roland dancing, I poo poo on it for Dr Doom and Lightsabers and the loving Golden Snitch. I didn't read any of his stuff that was published after that and I'm not going to. gently caress you right back, Mr King.

I would be willing to bet big money that if King had not been in that accident and continued writing the DT saga, he wouldn't have put all those modern references in the story. The other stuff, like "Hey Jude" and the "ancient" gas station stuff was fine because it was just bits and pieces. Tying his own works together was one thing, tying other people's works together was something else entirely.

# ¿ May 5, 2009 23:53

Mister Kingdom: Dec 14, 2005; And the tears that fall
On the city wall
Will fade away
With the rays of morning light

Astfgl posted:

No kidding. Remember when it was just "ka"?

Then it became:

* ka-babbies: young ka-tet members.
* ka-tel: a class of apprentice gunslingers.
* ka-mai: ka's fool.
* ka-me: ka's wiseman; the opposite of ka-mai.
* kas-ka: a prophet
* ka-shume: a unique feeling that a ka-tet is destined to break soon.
* te-ka: ka's friend.
* Can'-Ka No Rey: the red fields of none, where the Dark Tower lies.
* tet-ka can Gan: the navel (specifically, the navel of Gan).
* kas-ka Gan: singer of Gan's song/ prophet of Gan.
* ves-ka Gan: Song of the Turtle

The only remotely clever one out of the bunch was "ka-tel" because it sounded a little bit like "cartel" the first time I read it. But by the time we get to "tet-ka can Gan" (Gan's navel, really?) I was pretty sick of it.

You think maybe King did this to show us he had put a lot of effort into creating a fake language?

Nah, it was probably the booze and painkillers.

# ¿ May 17, 2009 22:52

Mister Kingdom: Dec 14, 2005; And the tears that fall
On the city wall
Will fade away
With the rays of morning light

Hennergy posted:

I think the short story The Jaunt is one of the few texts that has actually scared me. Not necessarily from the story itself, but the implications of the story.

Floating in some dark void for trillions and trillions of years.

I got seriously creeped out by "Mrs' Todd's Shortcut" and "Survivor Type" from the same collection.

Man, King could really scare the poo poo out of you in those days.

e: Wait. there's supposed to be a movie adaptation of The Jaunt?

http://www.thejaunt.net/main.html

Fall 2008?

Guess not. There's nothing on the IMDB and the last login on the MySpace page was 10/1/08.

Mister Kingdom fucked around with this message at 03:36 on Jun 13, 2009

# ¿ Jun 13, 2009 03:12

Mister Kingdom: Dec 14, 2005; And the tears that fall
On the city wall
Will fade away
With the rays of morning light

Sporadic posted:

I imagine it would have been one of the "dollar baby" short films.

That's what they spent on the clip you saw. It looks awful.

# ¿ Jun 13, 2009 14:11

Mister Kingdom: Dec 14, 2005; And the tears that fall
On the city wall
Will fade away
With the rays of morning light

Wilem DaFoe is on The Graham Norton Show on BBC America right now and I still believe he (not Norton) would make a great Roland.

# ¿ Jun 14, 2009 03:36

Mister Kingdom: Dec 14, 2005; And the tears that fall
On the city wall
Will fade away
With the rays of morning light

Stentorian Longing posted:

I just picked up Skeleton Crew last night; can't believe I hadn't read it yet (or maybe I did a longass time ago). I'm really enjoying The Mist, and goddamn he's good at creating that claustrophobic and hunted feeling. Now I'm debating whether to watch the movie or not. It makes for good reading but I think actually seeing what's in the mist would render it completely silly.

Edit: After reading the movie synopsis on wikipedia, the ending sounds like total garbage and I can't believe King liked it.

There's lots of great stuff in that one. You won't be disappointed.

# ¿ Aug 6, 2009 23:40

Mister Kingdom: Dec 14, 2005; And the tears that fall
On the city wall
Will fade away
With the rays of morning light

Gully Foyle posted:

I know there's the whole 'write what you know', but sometimes it feels like author insertion.

That scene had a little too much "author insertion", if you know what I mean. :v:

# ¿ Aug 13, 2009 02:23

Mister Kingdom: Dec 14, 2005; And the tears that fall
On the city wall
Will fade away
With the rays of morning light

Aatrek posted:

_{DAVID BROWN IS ON ALTAIR 4}

That part actually gave me goosebumps thinking about that poor kid.

Also, flying Coke machine.

# ¿ Nov 10, 2009 03:28

Mister Kingdom: Dec 14, 2005; And the tears that fall
On the city wall
Will fade away
With the rays of morning light

Hedrigall posted:

The next novel will be either a Dark Tower spin off, or a sequel to the Shining.

A werewolf? Really, Stephen? With all the weird-rear end creatures that inhabit Roland's world, you pick a loving werewolf?

RETIRE, GODDAMMIT!

# ¿ Dec 3, 2009 20:19

Mister Kingdom: Dec 14, 2005; And the tears that fall
On the city wall
Will fade away
With the rays of morning light

I'm going to wait until all five parts come out before I read it, but I hope they don't gently caress this up:

# ¿ Dec 12, 2009 14:51

Mister Kingdom: Dec 14, 2005; And the tears that fall
On the city wall
Will fade away
With the rays of morning light

Wiggles Von Huggins posted:

C) Coke machines are not scary.

When they are sitting there dispensing tasty beverages, no. When they are flying down the road, yes.

# ¿ Jan 7, 2010 01:28

Mister Kingdom: Dec 14, 2005; And the tears that fall
On the city wall
Will fade away
With the rays of morning light

bengraven posted:

I still haven't finished Cell. And I love zombie books. It isn't necessarily bad, I just keep dreading the part when the novel starts to suck. I keep expecting it. So I'm only like 5 pages in. ha

"Young fool... Only now, at the end, do you understand... "

# ¿ Apr 10, 2010 03:06

Mister Kingdom: Dec 14, 2005; And the tears that fall
On the city wall
Will fade away
With the rays of morning light

Chef Bromden posted:

Dear TBB,
I have a confession to make:
I loved The Dark Tower's Ending.
Sincerely,
Chef Bromden

I would have been disappointed if it had ended any other way.

# ¿ Apr 21, 2010 14:35

Mister Kingdom: Dec 14, 2005; And the tears that fall
On the city wall
Will fade away
With the rays of morning light

oldpainless posted:

"Word Processor of the Gods."

They did an adaptation of this on Tales From the Darkside. Mostly faithful to the original, but, man, was it ever low budget.

# ¿ Jun 17, 2010 01:46

Mister Kingdom: Dec 14, 2005; And the tears that fall
On the city wall
Will fade away
With the rays of morning light

DirtyRobot posted:

*I thought the ending to the Dark Tower was actually pretty good though.

I liked it, too. It was pretty much what I expected it to be. If readers were paying the least little attention to the theme of the story, they would have guessed it, too. I was surprised at how many people got pissed off.

# ¿ Aug 7, 2010 14:06

Mister Kingdom: Dec 14, 2005; And the tears that fall
On the city wall
Will fade away
With the rays of morning light

ZoDiAC_ posted:

This was announced in March. Totally missed it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/11/22/63

It sounds like a recycling of quite a lot of sci fi ideas ..

Robert Charles Wilson's A Bridge of Years had a man who found a time tunnel in his basement that went back to 1962 New York. The only difference was that he couldn't change anything.

# ¿ Mar 10, 2011 03:05

Mister Kingdom: Dec 14, 2005; And the tears that fall
On the city wall
Will fade away
With the rays of morning light

ConfusedUs posted:

Also, the gadgets were awesome.

My favorite bit was the flying Coke machine. A pity it didn't make it into the mini-series.

# ¿ Jul 26, 2011 01:53

Mister Kingdom: Dec 14, 2005; And the tears that fall
On the city wall
Will fade away
With the rays of morning light

bowmore posted:

I think the best thing about King is you can find all of his novels for $1. I went around to all the 2nd hand book stores, junk shops etc and I found 18 King novels (including Full Dark) all ranging from 20 cents to $2. If you count doubles then it would have been 35+

The local Humane Society has book sales several times a year. Everything's a quarter each. I buy a big boxful, read them and donate most of them back.

# ¿ Aug 2, 2011 03:42

Mister Kingdom: Dec 14, 2005; And the tears that fall
On the city wall
Will fade away
With the rays of morning light

Has anyone seen the filmed version of "Lunch at the Gotham Cafe"?

# ¿ Aug 3, 2011 23:48

Mister Kingdom: Dec 14, 2005; And the tears that fall
On the city wall
Will fade away
With the rays of morning light

ZoDiAC_ posted:

No, it seems obscure. Hope it surfaces and is awesome. It's not his best story but the maitre'd is weird and amusing as gently caress
http://www.bevvincent.com/gotham.html

I have the audiobook version and it's not bad.

# ¿ Aug 5, 2011 04:12

Mister Kingdom: Dec 14, 2005; And the tears that fall
On the city wall
Will fade away
With the rays of morning light

Ugly In The Morning posted:

For the songs, it's a matter of contrast- Velcro Fly and Hey Jude were elements of our world in a completely alien one and gave it some mystery/creep factor. "Was it our world in the far future?", for instance. When it's "Here come the doombots with the harry potter bombs!" and no subtlety at all it comes across as ridiculous.

Same goes for the oil fields and gas station remains. They'd obviously been in Roland's world for centuries and nobody knows how to explain them.

# ¿ Aug 13, 2011 19:58

Mister Kingdom: Dec 14, 2005; And the tears that fall
On the city wall
Will fade away
With the rays of morning light

trandorian posted:

It's horror. You're kind of not supposed to feel comfortable.

It's horror, I expected to be frightened:

"Oh, poo poo! Devil car!"
"Can't sleep, clown will eat my soul!"
"gently caress, it's that drooling hell hound!"

Not:

"Aww, a bunch of preteen boys loving a preteen girl before battling a giant spider in a sewer."

# ¿ Sep 16, 2011 22:52

Mister Kingdom: Dec 14, 2005; And the tears that fall
On the city wall
Will fade away
With the rays of morning light

trandorian posted:

Well I for one didn't feel like "aww that's so heartwarming" but more "ew that's hosed up, like the town". And also that it tied to how none of them had kids and half were in hateful broken marriages at the start of the book.

It was disturbing, not frightening or even horrifying. If they were raping her, then it would have been horrifying.

# ¿ Sep 17, 2011 16:04

Mister Kingdom: Dec 14, 2005; And the tears that fall
On the city wall
Will fade away
With the rays of morning light

Sir Prancelot posted:

Loofah handjob in Pet Sematary. It wasn't exactly disturbing, but it came right the gently caress out of left field.

So THAT'S where that's from. I could have sworn it was from A John Irving novel.

# ¿ Sep 18, 2011 22:19

Mister Kingdom: Dec 14, 2005; And the tears that fall
On the city wall
Will fade away
With the rays of morning light

Aatrek posted:

_{_{DAVID BROWN IS ON ALTAIR 4}}

When I first read that, it creeped me right the gently caress out. I pictured that poor kid laying on the surface of an airless planet struggling to breathe.

I picked up 11/22/63 today from the library. When the lady handed it to me, I thought, "drat, that's big loving book, even by King standards". Then I opened it up and realized it was the large print version.

# ¿ Dec 31, 2011 20:04

Mister Kingdom: Dec 14, 2005; And the tears that fall
On the city wall
Will fade away
With the rays of morning light

Hi Jinks posted:

Anyone have thoughts on the book vs the movie on Misery?

I was slightly disappointed that the hobbling scene was changed, but otherwise I was pleased with the movie. Kathy Bates earned that cock-a-doodie Oscar. I couldn't have cast that role better myself.

I am currently reading 11/22/63. So far, so good.

# ¿ Jan 14, 2012 22:35

Mister Kingdom: Dec 14, 2005; And the tears that fall
On the city wall
Will fade away
With the rays of morning light

hatelull posted:

I found the ending satisfying, and liked that we only got small bits of the the "JFK lives" as a sort of dark and grimy place with no concrete images. The love story was neat, and I think totally worth it.

I just finished the book. I'm a sucker for time travel stories. The ending wasn't too much of a surprise. I haven't read much non-Dark Tower King in years (exceptions being From a Buick 8 (which I did not like) and Cell (which I liked about the first 75%).

As for your spoiler, I have to wonder if King saw the 1985 Twilight Zone story "Profile in Silver" in which a descendent of JFK goes back in time to stop the assassination only have horrible poo poo happen as a result ending in world destruction.

# ¿ Jan 21, 2012 02:41

Mister Kingdom: Dec 14, 2005; And the tears that fall
On the city wall
Will fade away
With the rays of morning light

blue squares posted:

Well he started writing it in the 70s so he may have had the idea first.

I wonder how far he'd gotten before giving up?

# ¿ Jan 21, 2012 13:45

Mister Kingdom: Dec 14, 2005; And the tears that fall
On the city wall
Will fade away
With the rays of morning light

Most books would be finished in the time it's taken King to introduce all the main characters in Desperation. C'mon, Steve, pick up the pace! Tak!

# ¿ Jan 28, 2012 00:02

Mister Kingdom: Dec 14, 2005; And the tears that fall
On the city wall
Will fade away
With the rays of morning light

Just finished Desperation today. I can say this, it was certainly a book.

I didn't realize they'd made a TV movie of it. I added it to my queue. I expect it to be really bad.

# ¿ Feb 9, 2012 00:07

Mister Kingdom: Dec 14, 2005; And the tears that fall
On the city wall
Will fade away
With the rays of morning light

JustFrakkingDoIt posted:

Tom Skerritt as author insert. Matt "my life for you" Frewer as dopey dad. Ron Perlman as Collie Entragian. That guy from Wings as author insert's assistant.

It's a pretty well cast show, but if you didn't like the book vv

The book was okay. No new ground for King, though. I'm reading Full Dark, No Stars now and will tackle The Regulators next.

# ¿ Feb 9, 2012 03:51

Mister Kingdom: Dec 14, 2005; And the tears that fall
On the city wall
Will fade away
With the rays of morning light

JustFrakkingDoIt posted:

Giving honkies the blue balls!

gently caress yo plate, you honky ma-fa!

# ¿ Feb 11, 2012 04:37

Mister Kingdom: Dec 14, 2005; And the tears that fall
On the city wall
Will fade away
With the rays of morning light

Working my way through Full Dark, No Stars. Just finished "1922". Unless the clues are really loving obvious, I don't try to figure out the endings to books/stories. King got me on that one. I did not expect that.

# ¿ Feb 14, 2012 23:26

Mister Kingdom: Dec 14, 2005; And the tears that fall
On the city wall
Will fade away
With the rays of morning light

I just finished Full Dark, No Stars. I'm not as crazy about it as some. I didn't care for the ending of "Fair Extension" and, to a lesser degree, "A Good Marriage".

I kept expecting a Twilight Zone-like twist and the protagonists to get hosed over in the end.

Well, it's on to The Regulators.

# ¿ Feb 18, 2012 01:20

Mister Kingdom: Dec 14, 2005; And the tears that fall
On the city wall
Will fade away
With the rays of morning light

oldpainless posted:

Lemme stop you right there.

If you HAVEN'T read Desperation yet, go read Desperation.

If you HAVE read Desperation already, go ahead and read it again.

Continue with life.

I HAVE read Desperation and I don't want to read it again. Is Regulators that bad?

# ¿ Feb 18, 2012 16:40

Mister Kingdom: Dec 14, 2005; And the tears that fall
On the city wall
Will fade away
With the rays of morning light

Darko posted:

How you take Regulators probably matches how "serious" the frame of mind you get into when you read is, and if you can appreciate the craziest, randomness stuff being thrown at you. I liked it because it was ridiculously goofy and over the top, unlike Desperation, and think it should be read similar to watching some of Takashi Miike's wilder films. If you read it "flat," then you probably won't like it.

I started it today. The more ridiculous, the better. I really didn't care for Desperation (but I did Netflix the TV-movie, just for the hell of it).

# ¿ Feb 21, 2012 00:16

Mister Kingdom: Dec 14, 2005; And the tears that fall
On the city wall
Will fade away
With the rays of morning light

Well, I couldn't take it anymore, so I gave up on The Regulators.

TAK!

# ¿ Feb 23, 2012 23:47

Mister Kingdom: Dec 14, 2005; And the tears that fall
On the city wall
Will fade away
With the rays of morning light

oldpainless posted:

Why didn't you just listen to me in the first place?!?!

TAK!

I had to see for myself.

# ¿ Feb 24, 2012 13:36

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# ¿ May 3, 2024 03:36

Mister Kingdom: Dec 14, 2005; And the tears that fall
On the city wall
Will fade away
With the rays of morning light

It looks like Stephen will be doing the audiobook for the next Dark Tower book. I have the first three books he did on cassette. His voice takes a little getting used to, but I did enjoy his readings.

# ¿ Mar 1, 2012 04:22

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